Archive for March, 2008

March 30, 2008: Today would have been Nadia’s 84th birthday. I only knew her for four months and a week, but I have never forgotten her. Nadia had something that tugged at my heartstrings. I loved her very much. She had been a self-made woman who suddenly lost it and ended up living in a large and filthy apt. With her 3 dogs. No one was taking care of her when I met her on February 3, 1999.
I had seen her around the neighborhood walking her black dog Otranto, but we didn’t talk until that Wednesday afternoon. I was on my way to the movies to see the modern version of the Cinderella tale, starring Drew Barrymore and Anjelica Huston. I had noticed her dark brown eyes and the dark circles under them and her long black and white hair. She was dressed shabbily—baggy trousers, dirty tennis shoes and a long sleeved top. I didn’t want to be late for the movie, which was all the way in the Palermo neighborhood, almost an hour away from Vicente Lopez. But I wanted to talk to her. After that, we ran into each other until she invited me up to her apt. on the 1700 block of Avenida Maipu. It was something out of the Miss Havisham character in Dickens’ novel Great Expectations.
That March 30, 1999 Nadia had a better birthday. I went to Depto. 10 F, knocked on her door. Her dogs were behind her when she opened. I will never forget her face, or the way Otranto, Niebla and Rubio were protecting her. You were the only one who remembered, she told me. That evening we had a little party in my apt. There was a cake, sandwiches, tea and coffee. Even her adopted son showed up. Nadia was happy.

Saturday, March 29, 2008: 2 years ago today I took Lauchita from her cardboard box home by Hospital Bernardo Houssay to my apt. She had been living there for a while and I felt sorry for her. Lauchita is a grey and white cat that looked pregnant. Her eyes were green and she wanted a lap to sit on. When Rubio saw her, he, being a German shepherd, behaved like a gentleman. My home is your home, he seemed to tell her in animal language.
That night, as I lay in bed watching TV, Lauchita looked up at me. Come, jump up, I told her. She has made parts of my body her home ever since.

Friday, March 28, 2008: I cannot thank all this mortgage fraud/predatory lending episode enough for all the trouble it has cost me. I am not just talking about financial losses here. They are great and I haven’t recovered from them yet. There are other experiences that losing my condo brought to me. Humiliation, aggressiveness and being looked as a liability, being a loser. I am a bad investment, a person without a family.

March 26, 2008: I got another letter from Dominion Law Associates today. They want money or they will take legal action. I wrote them a letter saying I don’t have the money to pay. I just don’t. I am so sick of this! If I had known it was going to be like this, I would have died rather than go to GA back in 2002.

Wednesday, March 26, 2008: I have been thinking about the GA foreclosure fiasco. I have been thinking about it a lot. And I ask: With a credit score of 754, didn’t the mortgage company ask why? I mean, why a person with an excellent FICO score would be offered two mortgage loans with such high interest rates–one for 9.75% and the other for 13%? Didn’t Novastar find that strange? Aren’t high interest rates offered to people with poor credit? Didn’t they, the mortgage and credit professionals, see a red flag? Wasn’t it in their best interests (and mine) to warn me? Or to talk to the loan officer, ask him questions?

Saturday, March 22, 2008: Rubio would drag me out to get his palitos, also known as doggie sugar sticks, even when it was raining. And raining hard. Once, he got me out of the house when the water kept coming and coming down. We walked fast to the vet’s pet shop, and got there just as it began to hail. We were hit by big pieces of ice, but Rubio didn’t care. All he was interested in was his palito. The vet opened the door and gave him two palitos. When she saw how thouroughly wet I was, she gave me two more.

April 17, 1987: When my mother calls from San Francisco, my Tia puts on her mask. Everything’s fine, she tells her. We are not rich, but Ani and I are doing too bad considering. Considering what?, my mother asks. Bueno, this is still Argentina. Strange things happen here. Strange things? I can imagine my mother’s alarmed face as she holds on to the receiver. No, no, nothing to worry about. I meant to say that the economy is not like the one you have over there in NorteAmerica. They chat for a few more minutes. Then, after I have talked to my mother, we hang up the phone. That’s when my Tia’s mask com es off. It’s only for a little bit, a minute or two, but it’s enough. I can see how sad and tired she really is. She’s been protecting people all her life and now she’s protecting me–and herself.

Dear Editor, I feel that it is good to have jobs in a hard hit region like Buffalo, N.Y., but not at the expense of people who have gotten into debt because of foreclosure, mortgage fraud, predatory lending and/or job losses. If people are always coming up with new ways to make money, why not have people not have debt? I know that in that case they could not try to collect from them, but it would be better all around. Debts that you cannot pay or are hounded and harrassed for can give you ulcers and make your life miserable in other ways. No one wants to be called by a debt collector. Nobody in their right mind enjoys not having money to pay their bills. Eugenia Renskoff

March 21, 2008: I have just an article in The New York Times titled Collection Agencies Add Scarce Jobs in Hard Hit Region.
Instead of debt collectors and collection agencies giving bonuses and other prizes to those who get the most out of people in debt, why not make it easier for people to not have debt? I know that it’s all about money, but in my experience debt collectors have crossed the line. And if a person has no money to pay, why keep trying to make them? Why keep trying to have them write checks they can’t afford to write? Even if they wanted, debt collectors cannot have compassion because then they’ve have no jobs.